Newfound Species Of Dinosaur Named After Marvel Villain Thanos

While Marvel villain Thanos made appearances in the first two Avengers film, as well as an appearance in the first Guardians of the Galaxy, the supervillain didn’t really hit his stride until the release of Avengers: Infinity War.

In Marvel’s blockbuster 2018 release, Thanos and his lieutenants — Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight, Corvus Glaive, and Cull Obsidian — sought to fully power up the Infinity Gauntlet by collecting the six Infinity Stones.

After two hours of action spread across multiple galaxies and planets, Thanos completed his ultimate goal, capping off the movie by eradicating half of the universe’s population with a mere snap of his fingers.

Needless to say, Thanos has risen in popularity ever since the release of Infinity War, and he even made an appearance in Epic Games’ Fortnite, as previously reported by the Inquisitr. Now, the supervillain is invading the world of dinosaurs, as scientists have named a newly-discovered species of dinosaur after him.

As reported by Screen Rant, the new species of dinosaur — named Thanos simonattoi — was carnivorous in nature, and could originally be found during the later part of the Cretaceous period, in an area that is now occupied by Brazil.

As ComicBook reports, the announcement regarding the newfound species — and its Marvel-inspired name — was published in a November, 2018, issue of Historical Biology.

“In the present contribution, we describe a new abelisaurid (Thanos simonattoi, gen. et sp. nov.) from the São José do Rio Preto Formation, Bauru Group, Brazil (Upper Cretaceous). Thanos differs from other theropods by having a well-developed keel becoming wider and deeper posteriorly on the ventral surface; two lateral small foramina separated by a relative wide wall on each lateral surface of the centrum, and well-developed and deep prezygapophyseal spinodiapophyseal fossae,” the journal detailed.

Even though Thanos accomplished his ultimate goal in Avengers: Infinity War, the “Mad Titan” is set to return in Avengers: Endgame, with actor Josh Brolin returning to play Thanos.